Klansmen Confederacy
The Klansmen Confederacy (officially the United Chapters of the Klan and popularly "The New South") is a post-war nation in western Mississippi, formerly part of the Gulf Commonwealth. Known as the power base of the Klan and infamous for the extreme demonetization and violence of its citizens towards mutants and non-white humans, most outsiders view its fanatical "Grand Wizards" and growing economic and military powers with distrust and fear. Still, many communities outside its borders and on the banks of the River depend on its militia and merchants for their protection and financial gain. History Pre War Fourth Founding (2070-2077) Ever since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1985 and the end of segregation in the South, the third iteration of the Klu Klux Klan had fallen on hard times. By 2060, they only had 3,000 members nationwide and had been labeled a "hate group" by the U.S. government. The Klu Klux Klan's fortunes began to change though in 2066, when the war with China began. Jingoistic attitudes became the norm and benefitted the Klan enormously. In 2068, the South was rocked by supposed terrorist attacks by Chinese saboteurs, some black. This fear motivated the Klan to step up to the plate and take the initiative. During the night of July 1, 2068, the Klansmen near the naval shipyards of Pascagoula, Mississippi (Gulf Commonwealth) were patrolling the streets, as they were the neighborhood watch at that time. They sighted a Chinese man bearing a suitcase walking towards the shipyards. Suspicious of him both because of his race and his cargo, the Klansmen assailed him, asking about his business at this hour. The Chinese man attempted to flee but was beaten down by the overzealous Klansmen. It was then discovered that the suitcase the Chinese man was carrying was an explosive and after some hard questioning, it was also discovered that the man was an actual spy. The Klansmen saw the opportunity in using this to their advantage and held the spy in their custody for two more days until handing in the spy on the night of July 3 so that all the papers would read KKK CATCHES CHINESE SABOTEUR on July 4. This gained the Klan a great deal of good publicity and credibility. Of course, it was ignored that the other numerous times that Klansmen (especially the ones near Pascagoula) had attacked blacks and Chinese, they did not turn out to be spies. The Klan began a steady period of growth, gaining many members as a result of the good publicity given to them. By December 2069, the Klu Klux Klan had grown to over a million, less than its historical figures but still substantial growth. Most of these members were in the South, with the Gulf Commonwealth being the center of Klan influence. On December 24, 2070, the anniversary of the founding of the first Klan, Klan leaders from all across America met in a Great Conclave in the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi to reorganize the old and decrepit Third Klu Klux Klan into a better and more efficient Fourth Klu Klux Klan. Although the Conclave was met with much protest from the University's black residents, the Fourth Klu Klux Klan was formally created by the next week. From 2070 to 2077, the newly strengthened Klan tried to flex its collective muscle to gain political and social power. Klan members were soon voted into power in commonwealth governments. Voting restrictions on "undesirables and illegals" were put in place in some Klan controlled counties. It was even rumored that the Governor of the Gulf Commonwealth was a member himself, which he publicly denied. In 2071, the Klan made a bold move, attempting to have a march down Pennsylvania Avenue as the Second iteration of the Klan did. When they were refused, the KKK simply marched into Baltimore instead with over five thousand men. This caused the organization to be sued for over $200,000 by the city of Baltimore, which they easily paid. The next year, a film, named Night Watch was made about the events of July 1, 2068, casting the Klansmen as heroes against the villainous Chinese spy. This marked the high water mark of Klan influence in America, where their numbers swelled to four million, numbers to rival the old days. However, this all changed after the Mass Massacre. The Klan in Texas was often involved in border incidents and clashes with illegal immigrating Mexicans from US-occupied Mexico, who they hated for both their religion and their race. On September 13, 2073, a coyote shuttling illegal immigrants over the border shot one of the Klansmen, killing him. In response, the Klansmen crossed the border into Mexico and in a blatant miscommunication attacked a crowd of Mexicans returning from morning Mass, killing eleven people, including two children. News of the "massacre" spread like wildfire and the crimes of the Klan once again captivated the nation. The Klu Klux Klan leadership decided to cut their losses and also condemn the attack, but by then it was too late. The damage had been done. The decline of the Klan was not immediate but a process. It first began with corruption cases in the Southeast Commonwealth, which exposed many of politicians there of Klan ties that helped them in their illicit activities. Next, it was the continual news reporting of the racist and violent actions of the Klan, possibly to gloss over the government's even more nefarious action. The final nail in coffin was the conviction of the governor of the Gulf Commonwealth, who everyone knew to be a member of the Klan, of tax evasion in 2073. By December 2073, the Klan's numbers barely topped half a million. Their brief resurgence had ended. However, this did not mark the end of the Klu Klux Klan itself. The Klan stubbornly held onto members in the Gulf Commonwealth. Western Mississippi in particular became a hotbed for Klan activity with over nine thousand registered members in four chapters across six countries. There also a large separatist chapter in Texas formed in the aftermath of the Mass Massacre. The Klan once again gained some type of relevance in 2076, when martial law was declared throughout the United States. The Klan seized on this, reversing its former patriotic stance, and publicly joined rioters in marching on the capital of the Gulf Commonwealth, Birmingham, in December 2076. In the "Battle of Birmingham", rioters, radicals, and Klansmen fought the National Guard to demand a return to state government and a reduction of federal powers. That winter, Birmingham burned. The Klu Klux Klan continued insurgent activities after federal troops took back Birmingham in 2077. In one of his last addresses to the country, the current president of the United States named the Klu Klux Klan, among others, a terrorist organization. The Grand Dragon of the Mississippi KKK at that time, Robert Hendricks, was hiding out in Vicksburg at the time. One of the senators of the Mississippi Congressional District, Hendricks had connections in high places, specifically in the shadow government that eventually became the Enclave. His informant didn't care that he was now the head of a terrorist organization, only that they were old friends. Hendricks knew a nuclear attack from China would come in late 2077 during the planned assault on Beijing and he meant to be prepared. Building a secure fallout shelter outside of Vickburg using public funds, Hendricks informed several other Klan leaders nearby and even some as faraway as Alabama of the coming doom. As the sirens began to go off all over America on October 23, 2077, Hendricks and much of the Gulf Commonwealth KKK leadership entered their bunker outside Vicksburg to wait out the apocalypse. Post War Mississippi Burning (2077-2090) In Mississippi, fewer bombs fell than in most states since there were fewer strategic targets there. Nuclear bombs fell on Jackson, Meridian, Columbus, the Memphis metropolitan area, and the Gulf Coast. Like most people, the majority of klansmen (and people in general) succumbed to the bombings, either from the blasts or the radiation. These weren't the only effects of the war, as flash-hurricanes devastated the Gulf coast and riots raged for weeks. The bombs and hurricanes were not what killed Mississippi though. No, it was the radiation that did it. There were now hundreds of mutants on the highways, ever hungry with both refugees and raider bands fleeing them. In other places, the Klan survived but acted more erratically and radically as the apocalypse continued. The first sign of this radicalization came from the campus of the University of Mississippi with the captain of the football team and a fifth generation member of the Klan organizing the white students. He blamed the war on "the jews, and negroes" and turned a small crowd of survivors into a mob, that lynched all of them they could catch. After their list for violence was satisfied, they began to collect food and water and guns. After the riots calmed down, they began to receive travelers and refugees at the campus, which they had began to fortify against the wandering hordes of raiders and mutants. Finding several other members in the flock, a chapter was quickly established. They then began getting to know their fellow survivors, with anyone who wasn't a white protestant marked down secretly. They made their move in January 2078, gathering together in the middle of the night before donning their robes and moving from dorm to dorm, raping and murdering any marked down as "unpure mud-blooded dogs" and told the survivors to burn the bodies. This caused many survivors to flee in terror instead. The Klan in "Ole Miss" began to decline because of lack of member. On February 20, 2078, Grand Dragon Robert Hendricks and his elite cadre of Klan leadership emerged from their bunker to see the outside. The world now was grey, covered with a layer of nuclear fallout and radiation. Vicksburg had been abandoned for fear of nuclear bombing, which had not come. The city did have some ghoul squatters in it, both feral and intelligent. Hendricks and his Klan friends did not care whether the ghouls were intelligent or not and shot all of them. On February 21, the now self appointed Grand Wizard Hendricks hauled the Klan flag up above Vicksburg and claimed it as the property of the Klu Klux Klan. Fortifying himself in the city, Hendricks sent out his Klan leaders into the wasteland back to gather all the loyal Klansmen they could find in their former towns and bring them back, saying with a smile: "The South shall rise again." Whether Hendricks deliberately planned on declaring his independence upon exiting the the bunker or if it was a break neck decision is a contested topic among Klan historians. Most places were burnt out husks, burned either by nuclear fire or rioters. However, the Klansman who journeyed to Oxford in 2079 was pleasantly surprised to find the campus of UM under the control of Klansmen. Seeing the deteriorating conditions on the campus, the visiting Klansmen preached of a "promised land" to the south where there were only whites and good land to farm. The desperate people believed him and followed on an exodus south to Vickburg. The some Klansmen in and around Vicksburg had also survived the war, thanks to the quick thinking of local residents. The survivors from Oxford were settled in Hinds County near the ruins of Jackson, where they built the town of Barnett on the shores of a reservoir. It was not as good as promised but it was better than starving. The following decade was a hard one. Crops failed at first and many starved. Luckily, cannibalism did not become common at that time. Raiders from the north attacked while feral ghouls were also a common threat. However, by the late 2080s, things had begun to settle down and the Klan's crops finally began to grow. In 2089, the now aged Robert Hendricks called together the Klansmen of the area to a Great Conclave in Vicksburg, saying that "there must be order, or there will be chaos". He was referring to the fact that the Klan was, at that point, simply a racist town militia that was only loosely connected. Also, there were two pressing issues at the first Great Conclave: the restoration of slavery and the presence of non-white races on Klan land. Slavery was a resurgent institution post-War. After the initial chaos of the bombings, many Klansmen had pressed their black sharecroppers and many other non-white captives into slavery. This had continued on to 2089. However, some in the Klan felt that slavery of other races would only mean trouble in the future and many Klansmen hated the "slaves very presence in Klan territory. In fact, a large faction of the Klan simply wanted Klan land to be "whites only" and to just push out other races, enslaved or free. This faction eventually triumphed, forcing the slaveholding Klansmen to begrudgingly set loose their slaves. By the end of that Great Conclave, the four main chapters of the Klan were created and made a pact with each other, forming the United Klan Chapters (UKC), informally known as the Klansmen Confederacy, a "free" white nation to call their own. The Wars of Expansion (2090-2142) The year after the establishment of the Klansmen Confederacy, Grand Wizard Hendrick died of heart failure. His successor, Jason Bowie was one of Hendricks' "bunker bunch" and showed great favoritism toward his fellows in the "bunch". A corrupt but not stupid man, Bowie wanted to use the Klan to expand the Klansmen Confederacy without angering the Chapters. However, donning the red robes seemed to give Bowie a hunger. A hunger for better land and an insane need for security is which what ultimately led to war (not unlike other pre-War leaders). By 2093, Bowie had local Klansmen mobilized daily to deal with raiders, ghouls, and "undesirables" that wandered onto Klan land. This almost daily fight made many in the Klan resentful of Bowie, and some even plotted treason. Realizing that his staggering popularity would not keep him in power for long, Bowie attempted to whip up some patriotic fervor in 2095 by rallying the Klan chapters' militias to wipe out some infamous slavers based outside the ruins of bombed out Jackson, starting the first "War of Expansion" to accomplish the Klan's dream of a "free, white nation". Assembling his little army at Barnett, Bowie marched on the slavers' camp in the former Lefleurs Bluff State Park. After a brief firefight, Bowie wiped out the slavers and burned their camp to the ground. Interestingly, all the slaves present were set free and cut loose, white, black, and hispanic. However, the blacks and hispanics were still forced to leave the area and head east while the newly freed whites were allowed to return to the Confederacy with the klansmen. After that, Bowie gained more respect as a military leader from the rest of the Klan chapters. He and the rest of the "bunker bunch" cemented themselves as the leaders of the Klansmen Confederacy for almost the next fifty years. Also, Bowie learned that controlling the Chapters directly would not be easy. There were no real Wars of Expansion for the rest of Bowie's reign as Grand Wizard, beyond the occasional clash with raiders. In later years, Bowie preferred a hands-off approach to governance, so as not to anger the local Grand Dragons. This let each Chapter become in effect its own small country. Also he opened up legal trade with the outside for the first time in 2108, setting up the River Klan's economic success down the road. Grand Wizard Jason Bowie died in a tragic ghoul hunting accident in 2108, paving the way for his successor, another of the "bunker bunch" Andrew Taylor. Less shrewd than his predecessor, Taylor was a bull of a man from Lincoln County and had fought federal troops at Birmingham but had grown into almost a pacifist in his later years. He was not a man to be trifled with. Not understanding the fragile balance of the Chapters, Taylor often overstepped his boundaries to get what he wanted. Once, when a Great Conclave was called in 2111 to discuss the issue of possible black sharecropping (which he was against since he believed the races should be kept apart at all costs), Taylor walked out of the Conclave and broke the neck of a man who tried to stop him. This led to him becoming more unpopular than Bowie in his early days and even threatened the integrity of the Confederacy itself. Also, all the remaining horses in the Confederacy died during Taylor's office, giving him the nickname "Horsebane". So, in 2114, Taylor was killed in an ambush while traveling to a Great Conclave. No one asked who did it and no one cared. Bowie's lenience and Taylor's stubbornness had led to a decay in the office of Grand Wizard. Heck Robertson,a younger member of the "bunker bunch", managed to reverse that. A charismatic, bombastic man, Robertson won the hearts, if not the minds, of many Klansmen in the Confederacy. He often relied on nostalgia to hearken back to better days. Wanting to win glory and the loyalty of his Klansmen, Robertson dreamed up the next War of Expansion: a war to clear the land of mutants and non-whites and allow the Klan to expand. Also, this war would provide them with invaluable information about other counties and even states. After almost a decade of planning, in 2125 Robertson's first War of Expansion was conducted north of Barnett. A force of almost one hundred Klansmen from all over the UKC went up I-55 all the way to Batesville, stamping out raiders and killing ghouls, tribals, and blacks indiscriminately, killing hundreds of people in a few months in what could only be called a genocide. To those outside thr UKC, this war was known as the I-55 Race War. Returning in November 2125, the war was hailed as a success. After that, Robertson led the Klan in three other Wars of Expansion (2128, 2131, 2136) with varying levels of success. In the last one, Robertson died of pneumonia while on campaign in 2136 and was buried in an unmarked grave by the road, as he wanted. Robertson's death was mourned by many inside and few outside the Confederacy. The next Grand Wizard, Clyde Booth, was sixty-five and another member of the "bunker bunch". A soft, weak man, Booth let others make decisions for him while indulging in the luxuries of office and brought down the status of the office of Grand Wizard. It did not help that he did not lead any Wars of Expansion, leaving it to the Grand Dragons, at this time and developed dementia. In 2139, Booth died of unknown causes. The man who followed Booth was the last and possibly the least of the "bunker bunch". Gordon Rhett was a former protege of Andrew Taylor and even to a worst extreme. Ignoring the Chapters, Rhett called a War of Expansion but refused to lead it. The next War of Expansion he did lead but many believed this was to stave off his growing unpopularity. This second war proved to be his undoing in 2142 when he was shot in the head by an unknown wastelander sniper. The Dark Age (2142-2207) The last of the "bunker bunch" and the Wars of Expansion had passed. The line between the Hill Klan and River Klan chapters were becoming more clearly defined and causing internal trouble. The next Grand Wizard, Stephen Monroe, was a Grand Dragon from Barnett, one of the Hill Klan chapters. Monroe hated outside influences on the Klan and thought that the Wars of Expansion were too costly and expensive to continue, as well as all the wars amounting to being an overall flashy but unsuccessful attempt at ethnic cleansing. However, he saw that restricting trade with rafters would anger the River Klans and didn't want to do that. So, to make everyone happy in his eyes, Monroe made a secret agreement, named the Monroe Deal, with all the Grand Dragons of the UKC chapters. This Deal outlined the powers of four Grand Dragons and the one Grand Wizard as theoretically the same. The made each Klan chapter power to themselves, with the Grand Wizard as more a figurehead leader now. This allowed the Hill Klan chapter to restrict contact with all non-Klan peoples within their territory, while the River Klan chapters could continue trade with rafters on the River. Although it seemed like the Deal benefitted everyone involved, it ultimately weakened the Klansmen Confederacy's unity, handicapping it for many years. The rest of Monroe's reign was surprisingly peaceful. The Chapters kept to themselves and managed their own affairs while occasionally carrying out raids on outside settlements but not all on wars. Bandits and raiders from the outside were kept out through militia responses and good communication. This policy of isolation and self management kept the peace and relative prosperity for the next two Grand Wizards (2147-2164). However, things could never remain so peaceful. In Lincoln County, Swampers from the Florida Parishes began raiding constantly, by 2164 even twice a month. The problem reached a head when the Swampers actually defeated the Klan militia of the Lincoln Chapter in a pitched battle outside town in 2165. Alarmed by this, Grand Wizard Nathan Clark decided to bring the Klan together once again to combat the menace to the south. Gathering sixty men from all over the UKC, Clark plunged into the swamps south of Lincoln in 2166, never to return. The First Park War was an abject failure. Other men did return and the stories they told the people back home haunted the Confederacy for years. Cannibalism, mysticism, incest, and all manner of taboo were common with the Swampers and all taboo in the UKC. One Klansmen, Lee Orman, wrote a book on the Swampers and his own experiences in the Florida Parishes, entitled The Heart of Decay. Not popular in its time, The Heart of Decay was more successful in later years. After that, the Klans decided to ignore the problem on their southern border and let Lincoln solve its own problems. This dealt another blow to the Klansmen Confederacy's unity. Although the Swampers stopped raiding Lincoln eventually, the die was cast. After the disastrous campaign in the Parishes, the Grand Dragons decided to take action. In 2167, the assembled Grand Dragons called a Great Conclave of their own, the first in almost twenty years. There, they demanded that the Grand Wizard make them the sole commanders of their chapters' militia, who no one else could command (the Grand Wizard included). Neutered by the Monroe Deal, the tired old Grand Wizard agreed to the Grand Dragons' demands. This began a true dark age in the Klansmen Confederacy's history. After the death of the old Grand Wizard in 2171, a new one was elected in Vicksburg. This tradition of electing a Grand Wizard from Vicksburg became somewhat of a tradition, since most of the other Klan chapters were beyond caring and simply wanted to be left alone. In the following years, the Klan chapters and their Grand Dragons eked out an existence on their own, only paying lip service to the Grand Wizard in Vicksburg because of their reverence to the past. In 2187, the Methodist reverend Jethro Cullen of Barnett began to preach a strange new doctrine to his congregation in Barnett. Saying that God came to him in a dream, Cullen declared that all men were children in the eyes of God, black, white, or ghoul. This radical idea enraged many in the community but attracted others and soon a separate church, the Church of the Children of God, was formed. The klansmen tolerated the Church for a short while, but that could not go on forever. On Sunday afternoon in 2192, an angry mob of townspeople and klansmen marched on the Church of the Children of God, still worshipping and burned it to the ground with Reverend Cullen and his congregation trapped inside. However, some members of the Church survived the massacre and continued to write "seditious literature" that they spread across the UKC. The River Klan chapters in Vicksburg and Natchez continued their trade with rafters with few reservations. However, even generation or so, the towns would drive out or kill any "undesirables" that had stayed in their town so as to keep their racial purity such as in 2185 and 2194. These Klan traditions drove many rafters away from UKC ports. In 2198, super mutants fleeing from the Brotherhood of Steel's campaigns in the north washed up near Vicksburg. After Klansmen militia tried to ward them off with some warning shots, the super mutants sacked Vicksburg and took up residence in Robert Hendrick's old bunker. For the next ten years, the River Klan chapters tried to dislodge the super mutants, to no avail. They could not gather enough men and the Hill Klans did not want to waste lives retaking some River Klan city. They lose it, they take it, was a common saying of Hill Klansmen in response to pleads of aid from their brethren. Just to spite the Hill Klan chapters, the River Klan chapters continued electing Grand Wizards from their own ranks. The Hill Klan chapters became more insular, not leaving their settlements except to occasionally trade with other Klansmen and to raid "undesirable" settlements that the Klan saw as blights on the earth. A few times, Hill Klansmen would even skirmish with each other over trivial issues such as land disputes or marriage. Word of Matthias Dugan's rampage on the Gulf Coast had spread north and Hill Klansmen and River Klansmen alike began preparing for the worst only to be relieved when word of his death reached them. It is then perhaps ironic that it was a Hill Klansmen that brought the Klansmen Confederacy out of its Dark Age and created it as the nation-state it is today. The New Dragon (2207-2246) In 2207, a man jumped off a raft at the small wharf in Natchez. This man was Nathan Royce, a Hill Klansmen who had set off to explore the wide world almost twelve years before. Not only did Royce return with experiences from the outside world but also fabulous wealth and a "foreign" wife. Returning to his hometown of Barnett, Royce found the place close to ruin, as the Hill Klansmen's years of raiding other settlements had recently been met with reprisals. The only rich man in a town of paupers, Royce very quickly found his way up the political ladder, if rather reluctantly. Royce had a healthy disdain for the Klan and its strict rules and at first wanted to just settle for being mayor of Barnett. Nevertheless, being in the Klan was the only way of getting things done in the Confederacy and Royce soon worked his way up to being Grand Titan of his local Klan chapter in 2209. Now wielding a large amount of power locally, Grand Titan Royce worked on rebuilding Barnett and the farms around it, as well as doing public works such as building a new town hall and a small library. This outpouring of public service is what gave Royce enough popularity to run against Matthew Walsh, a descendent of the UM football player that led his people south, for the position of Grand Dragon of the Hinds Chapter of the Klan. Welsh accused Royce of being a "creampuff" and of not wanting to continue the Hill Klansmen's glorious tradition of raiding and fighting, while also calling Royce's wife a whore for being from the Big Easy. Others whispered that Royce had obtained his fortune through ill gotten gains and that he must be an immoral man. Royce himself was able to refute all these claims and more, selling his image as an outdoorsmen and a country gentleman, downplaying his intellectual side. This won over voters and Royce became the newest (and youngest) Grand Dragon in the Klansmen Confederacy in 2210. In 2212, emissaries from the River Klan chapters came to Barnett to beg their Klansmen brothers to help them retake their lost city, once called Vicksburg and now named Cotton Bluff, from the super mutants. Surprisingly, Royce agreed to help them. At that time, the other Grand Dragons and even the newly elected Grand Wizard David Lloyd took notice of this young man's quick rise to power and the recent success of his chapter. The once sluggish Klansmen Confederacy was waking up from its half a century of slumber. Royce led a force of fifty Klansmen from Barnett to assist the River Klan chapters in early 2213. Shown up by this young man's boldness, Grand Wizard David Lloyd announced he would send Klansmen to help in siege of Cotton Bluff. In all, a force of almost two hundred Klansmen was assembled to beat back the super mutants. Once the army had assembled, the Grand Wizard took center stage and Royce was forgotten. The Klansmen's numbers proved to be to overwhelming and the super mutants were driven out of Cotton Bluff. At the time, Grand Wizard David Lloyd used this battle to his own advantage, boosting his popularity significantly. However, Grand Dragon Royce's contributions were not forgotten, and he would be rewarded in time for his aid and his part in leading his Klansmen in battle (as minimal as it was) After retaking Cotton Bluff, the River Klan chapters experienced a spike in trade as rafters felt safer without super mutants menacing them. The Hill Klan chapters, specifically Hinds, also also began experiencing prosperity as Royce's public improvement projects reaped the rewards. An educated class began formed in Barnett, people like Royce who were curious about the world and did not shun new ideas. For the next two decades, Nathan Royce and his Klan chapter progressively became stronger. Barnett became a large, prosperous town. In 2223, Royce even helped one of the more adventurous townspeople to establish a trading company, Southern Caravans, that soon had a monopoly on trade within the Confederacy. That brought even more wealth to the chapter. During that time, raiders once again stepped up their attacks on the UKC's northern frontier regions. Royce led the other Grand Dragons in responding in kind by leading parties of klan militia to combat these threats, ultimately defeating them. In 2231, Grand Wizard David Lloyd died of natural causes and a new election kicked off. Many in the Hill Klan chapters now wanted in on the elections and nominated Nathan Royce, the rising new star, as their candidate for Grand Wizard. Running against him was Simon Lloyd, the brother of the previous Grand Wizard and a River Klansmen. The election was a tough one, but after a recount, it was determined that Royce had won by under one hundred votes. The River Klansmen became fearful of what would happen next and if the native Hill Klansman would attempt to wrestle away their trade rights on the River. With the UKC tipping as close to dividing as it did since its Dark Age, Royce decided to reassure the River Klan Chapters by actually moving his administration to Cotton Bluff as a sign of good faith. That started the time for reform and new ideas. School attendance become mandatory after planting season and the Hill Klan Chapters' tradition of raiding was outlawed (at least officially). This caused a short civil war in 2236 within the Lincoln Chapter, but that was soon silenced. Also, Great Conclaves became called more often to decide on issues and policy, making it into a type of pseudo-Cngress. From then on, Royce's overarching goal was clear, turn the Klansmen Confederacy into a functioning nation. It could not do that divided. Royce first goal was to dismantle the Monroe Deal (the doctrine that made the Grand Dragons were the sole leader of their chapter), which he perceived as crippling the Confederacy. He took inspiration from his experiences in the Big Easy. The bosses and Grand Dragons were similar in that they both wielded limited amounts of power and (in his opinion) held back progress. Both "needed" a polarizing leader to unite them. The only thing Royce needed was something to unite the Confederacy against. In 2239, the Brethren of the Shroud managed to pull a diplomatic coup and united many converted swamper clans in the Florida Parishes into the Brethren Swamp Confederation, a puppet of brethren clerics and a pariah in even the swamper community. Emboldened by their renewed strength, the swampers attacked Lincoln for the first time in over half a century. The local klansmen managed to repel the attack but only barely. After this attack was reported to Royce, he seized on this and called for the hosts of the Confederacy to unite against this threat. At this, all five of the major chapters sent men and an army of almost three hundred men were gathered. The UKC was whipped up into a war fervor against the swampers and the book The Heart of Decay was rediscovered and widely redistributed as propaganda. The Second Park War had begun. Royce's primary strategy in the war was twofold: keep the Klan army united under his sole command to crush the resistance of both the Grand Dragons and the Swampers. A few swamper parks were found and burned, but most stayed hidden and avoided the invading army. In the end, the only ones who were truly defeated in the Second Park War were the Grand Dragons, who lost command of their militia and were humbled by Royce's show of force. This was a turning point in not just Royce's term as Grand Wizard but in the history of the UKC itself. The Grand Dragons would finally submit to an overall leader again. The populace of the Confederacy were a bit confused at the conclusion of the Second Park War, unaware of Royce's machinations. Had they really won or not? Royce and many of the rank and file klansmen announced that the war had been a complete success and the swampers had been completely defeated. This was not exactly what happened, but the people of the UKC took this hook, line, and sinker. Royce was a war hero and beloved by the common people and much of the elite of the Hill Klan chapters. Though only fair in combat, Royce's skills shined through in administration. With public opinion of him high, Royce continued making his reforms, continuing to centralize the government, stabilize the largely agrarian economy, and even founded a postal service in 2242. It was tedious and rather boring work, but it had to be done to turn the Confederacy into a functioning nation. It was that year that Royce faced yet another adversity: the Boss Migration. After the unification of the Big Easy by the Royaume, many of the town's bosses had fled to the four corners of the earth. One of those bosses, Tobias Marquis, fled down the Mississippi River all the way to Natchez, hoping take refuge with his son in law Nathan Royce. The local klansmen, threatened by the outsiders' "invasion", fired on the Cajuns and killed many of them, sending the rest fleeing into the woods. The klansmen also set the Marquis' riverboat on fire, stranding him and his people there, and called for help from the Grand Wizard to aid them in hunting down the "invaders". Royce and fifty klansmen from Cotton Bluff answered the call for help, only to find the men and women being chased knew Royce by name. Royce, to avoid controversy but still save his in-laws, took the fugitives into his own personal custody and covertly shipped them downriver to New Memphis, where some of the Marquis family still live to this day. After seemingly taking care of another incursion, Royce's popularity skyrocketed. Unfortunately, it was now at its zenith. Later in 2242, Royce attempted to institute sweeping social reforms to improve relations with the outside and bring new ideas to the UKC. Some of Royce's protégés in Barnett even tried to bring to light the true extent of the atrocities committed during the Wars of Expansion. This was met with measurable backlash, but not enough to tarnish Royce's good name, only soek of his allies. The UKC was just not ready for that. However, Royce did manage to persuade the Hill Klan chapters to let in caravans from the outside for imports, as long there were no permenant settlers. The rest of Royce's term as Grand Wizard was spent repairing his reputation and solidifying the laws, institutions, and policies he had enacted as Grand Wizard. By 2246, Royce had seemed to have grown tired of the job and for the first time in the history of the UKC, a Grand Wizard resigned his position. The River Nation (2246-2268) When Grand Wizard Nathan Royce left office in 2246, the Klansmen Confederacy was in better condition than it had ever been. The election of the next Grand Wizard was highly sectional: the River Klan chapters, wealthy from trade, wanted the office of Grand Wizard back from the Hill Klan chapters, who they rightfully feared might want to pull back Nathan Royce's reforms. The River Klan chapters' candidate was Grand Dragon Franklin Reynolds of Natchez, an admirer of Royce and surprisingly, an expansionist. The Hill Klan chapters' candidate, Nathan Royce's wayward son Joel Royce, was young, inexperienced, and only getting by because of his last name. The election of 2246 wasn't even close. Franklin Reynolds won by a landslide and became Grand Wizard of the UKC. A horrifying event rocked the UKC shortly after Reynolds' election as Grand Wizard. In the town of Natchez, six murders took place over three months, all housewives killed and violated. The murders drew Grand Wizard Reynolds and even the former Grand Wizard Nathan Royce visited Natchez to comfort the relatives of the murder victims and to catch the killer. The murderer, a carpenter by the name of Saul Perry, was caught soon afterwards trying to flee the town and was hanged. Grand Wizard Reynolds blamed outside influences (namely "negro music" from across the river) for corrupting Perry and swore that these influences would and should be confronted. Something would be confronted four years when representatives from across the Mississippi in Arkansas arrived at the Grand Wizard's doorstep begging for his help. For years, their people had peacefully inhabited the shore of the the Mississippi River and had farmed, traded, and generally just tried to survive on what they had with little interference beside the occasional raider band and the super mutants in the early 2200s. However, in the mid twenty third century, a threat came from the south: more bosses fleeing the Royaume. These bosses, seeing this primitive and rather lawless land as an opportunity, set themselves up as raider "bosses". The people of east Arkansas saw these new raiders as dangerous but tolerable, seeing that they mostly fought against each other to test their status as top dog and supposed "power". It was in 2248 the real threat came: vampires. The migration of Nocturnals south has given raiders an ancient ideal to imitate. Yes, these Vampire Raiders (or blood-drinking raiders with Savage Syndrome) began attacking villages on the west side of the Mississippi River and took a toll on their strength. The raider bosses, in turn, also ramped up their attacks on both vampire raiders and wastelanders alike, determined to gain as much footing as possible. By 2250, the people of east Arkansas were in a desperate situation with both their wealth and blood being stolen. So, they appealed for help from the Klansmen Confederacy, a relatively large, stable nation across the river with a military. The Crucifix War (2268-2281) Culture The Klansmen Confederacy is primarily divided into three different "kultures": River Klan- Living on the Mississippi River, the River Klan chapters are marginally more tolerant than the others. They have almost constant exposure to rafters from ends of the river. However, they still retain views of white supremacy, just not as severe as the other chapters. The River Klan are thought of by most as plantation owners and merchants but are mostly made up of subsistence farmers and fisherman. Hill Klan- On the other hand, the Hill Klans embody any outsiders worst nightmare of the Klan. The Hill Klan chapters are in the Piney Woods and hilly regions of central Mississippi, and they have a long tempered hatred for blacks, mutants, and other "undesirables". The way to deal with these "undesirables" is simple: get out or die. The Hill Klan chapters are mostly made up of subsistence farmers and hunters. New Klan- The New Klan is made up of the newly joined Klan chapters that have recently joined the UKC, mostly in central Mississippi and riverside Arkansas. The values of these New Klan chapters greatly vary. Some chapters more closely resemble other typical settlements in the wasteland than their fellow Klansmen while others wholly embrace the Klan. The New Klan chapters are a combination of whatever one can imagine comes from the wasteland that the Klan will tolerate. However, all three "kultures" have common features. All Klan towns and settlements are made up of white human only permanent residents. Of course, there are some loopholes, but this is the general rule. Also, all Klansmen are required to be part of a Protestant denomination, whether it be Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian. This causes enforced "conservative" rules on things such as alcohol, prostitution, and homosexuality. Economy The Klansmen Confederacy is mostly dependent on farming, a common feature in the 23rd century. Trade on the river is what really drives the economy. Money is made from trade with rafters, as well as tolls on certain parts of the river. Government An ethnic confederation, the Klansmen Confederacy elects its officials democratically from the local mayor to the Grand Wizard. Of course, all voters must be members of the Klan itself. The chain of command in the Klansmen Confederacy is straightforward. On top, there is the Grand Wizard, the leader of the Confederacy whose powers vary with whoever holds the office. Below him are the Grand Dragons, who preside over one Klan chapter. The mayors of towns and the Grand Titans, the leaders of local Klan councils, are about on the same level of importance. In case something jarring happens or a important issue comes up that affects the whole UKC, a Great Conclave is called to judge the matter. Military One of the Klans' main functions in the wasteland is the fact that they are a militia to fight external threats. The Klan trains every other week or maybe month in shooting and combat. Troop quality varies from chapter to chapter and sometimes even town to town. The Klan militia acts as the UKC's military. Relations Gallery File:RallyOfKnights.jpg|Early knights and militia, photographed in 2086. File:UCTKmap.png|Map of Mississippi with Pre-War county lines. Red regions indicate strong UCTK presence, orange represents a lighter, but active presence. File:Axe.jpg|Typical Hill Klan greeting File:River.jpg|Typical River Klan greeting File:CuervoRanger.jpg|Typical New Klan greeting JackCooperRifle.JPG|Your typical Klansmen. Category:Groups Category:Mississippi